I’ll admit it: I still use a BlackBerry. I also use an iPhone and an Android phone, but I don’t mind being teased by friends when I need to crank out a long email in seconds, because the BlackBerry keyboard is still the best. My thumbs can speed along on its tactile keys without forcing me to look down as I walk, and it never makes an embarrassing word change using autocorrect.

But really, typing on glass keyboards — like those found on iPhones, Android phones and Windows Phones — should be much easier by now. This week I took a look at a few technologies that gave me hope.

BlackBerry 10 | The keyboard on RIM’s newest smartphone will suggest words right on the keyboard; swipe up on a word to add it to a sentence.

I tested two apps for Android phones that use very different approaches: the $3.99 SwiftKey 3 by TouchType Ltd., which is available now, and Snapkeys Si by Snapkeys Ltd., which will be available free in the Google Play Store Jan. 16. (Apple doesn’t allow third-party companies to take over core features, like the keyboard, on devices running its iOS mobile operating system.) I also got to briefly try out the smart predictive keyboard technology on Research In Motion’s upcoming BlackBerry 10.

Of the two new apps, I had an easier time adjusting to SwiftKey 3, which uses a traditional on-screen keyboard and guesses what you’ll type next by using a predictive language algorithm. It also incorporates touch gestures, like a right-to-left swipe across the keyboard to delete the last word and left-to-right swipe from the period button to insert a question mark.

Snapkeys Si was a tougher adjustment: It abandons the traditional keyboard altogether, forcing users to type on just four squares that hold 12 letters; all other letters are produced by tapping in the blank space between these four squares. Like SwiftKey 3, it uses some swipe gestures, like a right-side diagonal swipe down to create a period. Snapkeys Si aims to solve fat-finger syndrome, giving people’s fingers bigger targets and guessing the words they mean to type.

The BlackBerry 10 is scheduled to be launched on Jan. 30. I got some hands-on time with its on-screen keyboard, and was impressed by its suggested words, which users can swipe up to throw into sentences. This is designed to make the device easy to use with one hand. The BlackBerry 10 keyboard also reads and learns exactly where a user taps each key to better predict which letter to type, so clumsy fingers make fewer mistakes.

Snapkeys Si | The traditional QWERTY keyboard layout is abandoned in this app, replaced by just 12 letters displayed in four squares.

SwiftKey 3 for Android is an app that has a healthy understanding of how language is used in everyday conversation, and supports 54 languages, including variations like American, British and Australian English. Creator TouchType scraped Internet language data from around the world to understand how people speak in real-life situations — not by studying a dictionary. It then used this knowledge to create a predictive algorithm that guesses what you’re likely to type next, suggesting three options above the keyboard as you go.

This app can also detect where you meant to add a space, automatically adding it in for you. I found this feature to be a handy time saver as I typed since I could just keep going rather than stopping to tap the space key after each word.

During setup, SwiftKey 3 users can opt to give the app access to their Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and SMS interactions so that it can study a user’s language to further understand how the person talks. For example, if someone always preferred to spell “thanks” as “thx,” SwiftKey 3 would learn this behavior and add “thx” in as a word rather than continuously trying to correct it. A TouchType spokesman says later this year the company may add a feature allowing users to customize the app to write out complete words when they type abbreviations, like typing “abt” to get “about.”

For privacy purposes, the app only stores this data locally on your phone rather than sending it back to the company for making improvements. And you can erase the app’s personalized data at any time in Settings, Personalization, Clear Language Data.

SwiftKey 3 | This app supports more than 50 languages, and remembers how you use words, like knowing to type ‘MacLaren’s’ above.

SwiftKey 3 is free for the first month, and then costs $3.99 to continue using it. The app will remember all of your custom language settings when you upgrade, so you don’t have to reteach it.

Snapkeys Si, made by Israeli startup Snapkeys, lets you see more of your smartphone screen while you’re typing by using just four squares containing 12 letters instead of the traditional keyboard. Although these bigger finger targets made it so I never accidentally typed the wrong square, it took me a while to get used to knowing where each letter was and which letters weren’t in squares at all.

Typing words with letters that aren’t in squares requires using the blank space in the middle of these squares. So to type the word “wish,” I’d find the first three letters in squares, selecting each of them. But the “h” isn’t in a square, so I’d tap the blank space between these squares. In the case of “wish,” Snapkeys Si got it right, but other words were more challenging to type, which frustrated me. Suggested words appear on the right side of the four squares, and tapping one of them adds it to a sentence. Once a new word is added to Snapkeys Si dictionary, it will be suggested from then on.

Like SwiftKey 3, Snapkeys Si only saves your personalized language settings on the phone.

The space key is to the right side of these four squares, and the backspace key is to the left. I added periods to the end of sentences by swiping diagonally down from right to left, and added commas by swiping diagonally down left to right.

Snapkeys Si is worth a try if you’re looking for a fresh alternative to traditional keyboards. But I found that it was a lot of work to learn after years of using the traditional QWERTY keyboard layout. The app is still in its beta, or first version, and the company says it will continue to improve.

Smart keyboard apps like SwiftKey 3, Snapkeys Si and others make typing on glass less painful and more intuitive. Just beware of the steep learning curve you may have to climb to start using them.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

http://allthingsd.com/20130108/what-you-dont-know-about-sharing-photos/ http://allthingsd.com/20130108/what-you-dont-know-about-sharing-photos/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2013 20:39:27 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=283545 The visiting family members have left, the Christmas tree is out on the curb and the New Year’s Eve party confetti is all vacuumed up. If only sharing your holiday photos was as easy to manage.

After watching friends and relatives struggle to navigate the complications of photo sharing using Facebook, Apple’s Photo Streams and Google’s social network, Google+, I’m here to help. In this column, I’ve organized tips and tricks that might surprise even the most share-happy shutterbugs, and will serve as a helpful guide for people who want to feel more in control and comfortable while sharing photos. While there are numerous alternative methods for photo sharing, including thousands of apps, I zeroed in on Facebook, Photo Streams and Google+.

People can share albums from Google+ with anyone, including people who don’t use the network, by generating a link that can be sent to others.

Sharing With Friends Who Don’t Use the Network

Here’s an all-too-familiar scenario: You spend hours uploading, editing, captioning and “tagging” (identifying people by name) photos to create an album on Facebook, only to be asked by the one person who doesn’t use it if she can see the album. If you’re like most people, you say you’ll send the photos along, eventually. Then you change the subject to something more pleasant, like the cavity you recently had filled.

Unbeknownst to many users, Facebook, Google and Apple enable sharing with people who don’t use their services. Not surprisingly, these out-of-network sharing options are buried in an effort to force people into using the services. So where are they?

In Facebook, after creating an album, open the page that shows the album’s title and contents, select the small gear icon to the right of the album title and click “Share Album.” A Web link to the album will appear that you can copy and send to anyone, even if they don’t use Facebook or aren’t one of your Facebook Friends.

Facebook’s iOS and Android apps enable uploading multiple photos to existing albums, using the icon, above, or new albums.

Any Apple device running the company’s newest operating system, iOS 6, can create and view Shared Photo Streams. These are collections of photos on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch that you can share with friends via email. If your friends also use iOS devices, they can use them to view the Shared Photo Stream.

People who want to see these photos but don’t have an Apple device can still do so, as long as the album creator moves a slider labeled “Public Website” to the “on” position. This public album link is included in an email invitation, but it’s easily overlooked because it appears below a much larger blue button labeled “View this Photo Stream,” which only works on iOS devices. Be sure to click on the text at the very bottom of the email invitation that says, “You can also view this photo stream on the web.”

When people use Google+ to share photos, they’re immediately encouraged to click once and share to “Circles,” which are select groups of people within Google+. But they can also share with friends outside the network by adding their email addresses into the line that says, “Add names, Circles, or email addresses.” This enables sharing with friends who don’t use Google+ or don’t have Gmail accounts.

A Shared Photo Stream as seen through a public album link.

Entire albums can be shared outside of Google+: Within Albums, select one and click the “More” drop-down menu to find “Share album via link.”

Sync Mobile Photos as You Go

Facebook, iCloud and Google+ allow people to wirelessly synchronize their mobile photos with their accounts, saving them privately until they’re ready to be shared.

To set this up on Facebook, you can use the mobile app or the website. From the app, select Photos on the left-side panel, then Sync at the bottom right of the screen. Tap the gear in the top right to set whether your phone will sync over Wi-Fi or cellular or just over Wi-Fi. From Facebook.com, open your Timeline, select Photos, “Synced From Phone” at the top, then follow instructions to share images. People can sync up to two gigabytes of images.

Anyone who buys an Apple or Android device is prompted during setup to turn on Photo Stream or Instant Upload, as the companies call their respective offerings. Shared Photo Streams don’t count against your overall iCloud storage, nor do they work against your count of photos in Photo Stream, which syncs the last 1,000 images across your iOS devices. Google+ stores its synchronized mobile photos under a section called Instant Upload; these remain private until shared with others. Google+ has an overall limit of 5 gigabytes, but standard-sized photos like those captured on smartphones don’t count against this limit.

Other Helpful Tips

Facebook Camera is the free app that first made it possible for people to upload multiple photos to Facebook via iOS. Now, the main Facebook app also enables uploading multiple photos on Android or iOS, and images can be added to new or existing albums by selecting New or tapping a small album icon. Facebook also makes it simpler to post several photos at once in a status update using your Web browser: Users can now click a small “+” icon that appears beside uploaded photos to add more. Also, it’s now possible to drag and drop images right into the status box for sharing with Facebook friends.

If you’re ready to share your Apple Photo Stream with a broader network of friends, these can be uploaded to Twitter or Facebook, but the steps are practically hidden from view. Do this by opening Photo Stream and clicking the small, blue arrow to the right of the Stream you want to share. Make sure it has a link associated with it by switching the Public Website slider to “on,” then hit “Share Link” and select your preferred social network destination. Apple’s own message system, iMessage, is also a sharing option here.

Photo sharing should be more intuitive, and Facebook, Apple and Google are obviously still figuring out the best ways to pack multiple features into their websites and mobile apps. With any luck, your friends and family will have an easier time viewing your photos than you did sharing them.

Email Katie.Boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130108/what-you-dont-know-about-sharing-photos/feed/ 0

http://allthingsd.com/20121218/fresh-design-brightens-evernote-5/ http://allthingsd.com/20121218/fresh-design-brightens-evernote-5/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:05:25 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=279058

Evernote 5, currently available for Mac and devices with the iOS operating system, features a complete redesign, with an improved ‘Cards’ view, top, of saved items.

Since its debut in 2008, Evernote has tried to change that. This free service gives people a place to store all kinds of documents and uses a system of virtual notebooks to sort things like PDFs, text notes, audio snippets and drawings. One of Evernote’s strongest features has been its usability on almost all devices and operating systems, including Macs, Windows PCs, BlackBerrys, devices running iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) or Android, and browsers and printers.

But like a ho-hum, reliable car that merely got you where you wanted to go, Evernote hasn’t always been a particularly delightful thing to use.

Meet Evernote 5, a revamped version of the service that purrs with fluid features and playful design elements. In place of a dull list view of notes and notebooks, a handsome Cards view shows better images and details for saved items; on iOS, each card spins around and floats toward you when it’s selected.

A new Atlas section sorts all Evernote entries by where they were captured, displaying attractive maps that bring life to boring notes. Searching has improved. And a handy left-side panel includes new sections for Shortcuts to notebooks or notes, which you set up, and Recent Notes, which displays the five most recent things saved to your Evernote account.

A new ‘Atlas’ section sorts all Evernote entries by location.

Evernote 5 recently launched on Apple’s Mac computers and iOS mobile devices, and the company will bring out versions for Windows, Android and the Web early next year. A free Evernote account gives you 60 megabytes of usage a month, while a Premium account includes 1 gigabyte of usage each month, no ads, offline usage and other extras. Premium costs $45 a year or $5 monthly.

Last summer, when I finished my final project for graduate school, I relied on Evernote to organize all of my notes, files, emails, photos and interviews. It did the job, but Evernote 5 is simply better looking, more functional and more enjoyable to use.

If you like collaborating with other people on notes, you can share anything from your Evernote account with others via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or email. Evernote 5 has a smarter way of displaying notebooks, with a small people icon in the top right of each shared notebook. The covers of these notebooks also tell who owns them, and notebooks can now be sorted by Name, Note Count or Owner in one simple step.

Evernote makes seven different apps and works with various products from other companies. To keep track of all these offerings, a Trunk section in Evernote 5 sorts them and directs people to links where they can buy or download products.

Notebooks can be organized by subject, as shown on the iPhone app.

My favorite app is the Evernote Web Clipper, which works with browsers including Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari to help you save anything you find on the Web. This can include entire Web pages or just a particular image or selection of text. I used Evernote to gather gift ideas for family and friends, keeping them all in a notebook labeled Christmas 2012.

I also like using Evernote’s Clearly, which is a browser add-on for Chrome and Firefox that works like the Reader tool in Apple’s Safari browser. I use it with Chrome, and anytime I click on the Clearly icon, the text of the blog page or website that I’m reading appears without cluttered ads and other distractions. I can adjust the background color and text size on the page, or clip pages directly to Evernote.

A few keyboard shortcuts are extra helpful when using Evernote on your computer. Pressing Control + N on Windows, or Command + N on Macs, will instantly create a new note. On Macs, tapping Command + Z will undo your last action in Evernote and pressing Command + ; will check spelling.

One of the little-known Evernote features is its integration with email. Each account, free or Premium, is assigned an email address. This address is your account name added to a forgettable string of letters and numbers, but it can be added to your email contacts. Anything you email to your Evernote account gets saved just like a note would.

When you go into Evernote, you can manually drag that email you sent into a specific notebook. Or, by adding @[notebook name] to the end of your subject line, the email will automatically be added to a specific notebook. I did this with email confirmations for gifts I bought, forwarding these emails to my Evernote email address with @Christmas 2012 in the subject.

Evernote’s iOS app has a special Page Camera option that allows users to digitize entries made into physical notebooks by taking pictures of the pages. Evernote recently joined with Moleskine notebooks to make Smart Notebooks. These are specially designed for use with Page Camera and feature stickers to give notes pre-defined or personalized tags. These Smart Notebooks cost $25 or $30, depending on size, and come with a three-month Evernote Premium account code.

Evernote has come a long way from its original design, and people who use Evernote 5 will delight in this revamp of the trusted service.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121218/fresh-design-brightens-evernote-5/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121211/a-health-monitor-that-gets-you-up-and-moving/ http://allthingsd.com/20121211/a-health-monitor-that-gets-you-up-and-moving/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:26:41 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=277019

Here come the holidays—and with them the extra pounds from family feasts, eggnog and gingerbread. Rather than wait to make a New Year’s resolution to get in shape, one technology product might get people off the couch and moving now. It’s appropriately named Up.

This health-monitoring band is one tech product I’ve put off testing because I didn’t think I had enough time to use it. Nor was I thrilled about wearing a band on my wrist round-the-clock for a week straight. But I realized loads of people who are too busy to track their movement, sleep and nutrition habits could benefit from this gadget. The reason? It works even if you do little more than wear it.

The first version of Up, by Jawbone, was released over a year ago but had hardware problems, causing the company to pause production and issue full refunds to many users. Competitors abound, including the $149 Nike+ FuelBand, $100 Fitbit One and $150 Larklife.

The $130 Up by Jawbone, shown intact (left) and stripped to its innards (right), tracks movement and sleep.

The Up band, which costs $130 and can be bought online or in stores like Apple, Best Buy and AT&T, corresponds with a free iOS app. (An Android app is in the works.) There is no Up browser software. The Up band offloads its data when plugged into the headphone jack of an iOS device, and I found that using this physical connection and watching the data load was a fun, quick experience. Using a physical plug for syncing, rather than a power-draining Bluetooth wireless connection, also means the band’s battery can last for 10 days.

Jawbone suggests syncing the Up twice a day, but I plugged mine in more often, excited to see how many steps I took in a workout or how well I slept.

During setup of the Up app, users enter their gender, weight, height and birthday so the device can more accurately estimate how many calories you’ve burned throughout a day. The Up band has built-in sensors that track your movements, whether you’re walking, running, sitting idle or sleeping—including when you fall asleep, when you wake and whether you’re in light or deep sleep. It also vibrates, a feature that can be used as an “Idle Alert” to notify you if you’ve sat still for a certain length of time, say 15 minutes, or as a silent alarm. It even knows to wake someone during light, not deep sleep, because that person will wake feeling more refreshed. The app will wake you up to 30 minutes ahead of your set time to catch you at the optimal sleep stage.

I had planned to test the Up as a more passive user, letting it track my steps and sleep habits without me doing very much, but I was quickly hooked on adding data manually. This included adding workouts that weren’t tracked, such as my 15-minute abdominal workout, and entering information about what I ate and drank.

Plugging the band into an iPhone’s headphone jack syncs data with the Up app. Details of a night’s rest include the amount of time spent in light- and deep-sleep stages.

Charts in the app show users’ movements each day and over time.

I found food entry to be a weak spot in the Up. Specific foods weren’t always easy to find in the app, or I cooked the food myself, making it a challenge to enter all of its ingredients. I wound up entering broad categories of food, like “whole wheat spaghetti,” rather than entering all of the accompanying veggies, meaning I didn’t get an accurate overall picture of my diet. And the Up app could do a better job of identifying what each color means in the charts that measure your movement and sleep; as of now, you have to guess that red indicates intense movement and yellow means less intense movement. I also wasn’t gung-ho about the app’s mood indicator, which displays a smiley face that you can change to reflect your current mood.

The Up band isn’t a heart monitor, nor does it have a display for seeing things like the current time (if you wanted to use it as a watch) or the number of steps taken.

Wearing the Up band can cramp your style, kind of like wearing sneakers with a business suit. Its sporty, rubber exterior goes with some clothing, but not most of my outfits. It was comfortable enough on my wrist that I barely noticed the way it felt after just a day, even while I was sleeping—though it was a little odd to keep on in the shower. I tested the Up in onyx color; it’s also available in light blue and mint green with five more colors coming early next year.

If you need a digital kick in the pants that makes you more conscious of your body, Up will give it to you. I found myself walking to the farthest bathroom in my office to log more steps, drinking water instead of soda because I knew I’d add it to my food log later, and standing up to walk around nearly every time my Up’s Idle Alert went off.

At first, the Up’s iOS app can be a bit overwhelming because it’s loaded with features. The app sets goals for you according to World Health Organization guidelines, like eight hours of sleep a night and 10,000 steps a day, and shows the average met by most Up users. You can change these settings, but I kept mine at the WHO average. I felt a boost of pride when I met and surpassed daily goals.

Before going to sleep each night, I pressed and held a button on the Up that illuminated a tiny moon on the band, indicating I was going to sleep. In the morning, I pressed the button again and saw a snowflake, indicating that I was awake. This manual press on the Up helps the app to know when you first lie down in bed, so it can measure how long it takes for you to fall asleep. I used the Up’s silent alarm and it woke me 10 minutes before the time I set because I was in light sleep.

I was glad to learn that my brisk 15-minute walk to and from the subway each morning is over 4,000 steps. And after working at a Christmas bazaar, I synced my Up with my iPhone and found out that I walked 11,100 steps—passing my daily step goal in the time of the bazaar. When I woke up twice in the middle of one night, my Up band recorded this and gave me a cheeky tip about sleep the next day. The tip was titled, “Was It Good For You?” I created a “Team” with two other users, allowing us to share whichever stats we chose. We commented on each other’s progress, and it gave me a feeling of camaraderie.

Up gives people the flexibility to engage with it as much or as little as they want. If you’d rather not take the time to sync, the band can store up to nine months of data between syncs. Although the Up band isn’t always fashionable, it will make people more conscious of what their bodies are doing each day.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121211/a-health-monitor-that-gets-you-up-and-moving/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121204/custom-magazine-focuses-on-the-big-pictures/ http://allthingsd.com/20121204/custom-magazine-focuses-on-the-big-pictures/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:07:08 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=275128

When you’re hungry for online news, where do you go for a personalized fix? There’s the friend who constantly posts the funniest stories on Facebook before everyone else, or the colleague who shares smart articles on Twitter the second they’re published online. You might even use an app that sorts through online news stories to find exactly what you’ll want to read.

One of the coolest apps out there is Zite, which assembles stories into a personalized digital magazine and simplifies the process of consuming a lot of information in a short time. Since its debut nearly two years ago, I’ve opened Zite’s free app on my iPad nearly every morning. (It also runs on Android and Windows Phone 7.) It displays loads of interesting material on all sorts of topics, and it knows what I like to read because it has tracked my reading habits since the first article I read on Zite.

Starting Tuesday, a new edition of Zite is available for download, updating the existing app on Apple’s iOS 6. (An update for other devices is coming next year.) I’ve been using this new version for the past couple of weeks with a focus on the iPad app. While I like some of its new features, such as a box for current headline news, it tries to do too much without enough focus.

The new Zite puts a lot of emphasis on visuals, forcing people to swipe to new screens to see more stories. Instead of seeing five articles (with headlines, photos and a few sentences per story) in neat squares on the first page of Zite, you’ll now see just three articles. One story includes an extra-large image that swallows up a lot of space and isn’t always clearly distinguished from the rest of the page. Other pages are shown in a layout meant to mimic a glossy magazine, but can come off looking haphazard and too busy.

If these images offered some sort of insightful visual, I might be more accepting of them. But in many cases, the photos don’t show their actual subject. An article about TV personality Alton Brown showed just his pant leg and hand, while a story about a new tech company showed a large black square with a small sliver of someone’s face. Some headlines showed up cut off in mid-sentence.

Zite’s CEO, Mark Johnson, says the app’s algorithm sometimes highlights the wrong part of a photo, and font and software glitches caused the headline issues. He says the company plans to fix both of these problems in an update to the new version, which is expected next month.

So what does this new Zite app do that the old one didn’t? People can now tell Zite if they like articles without opening them by dragging the article up (for thumbs up) or down (for thumbs down). They can see articles that are most popular with other Zite users and can read a stream of Headline News, two features I wondered about while using the original Zite.

A screenshot from the Zite app

A “Featured on Zite” section promotes sponsored pages, like Avant-Garde Design sponsored by Lexus, and other news sources, like the Los Angeles Times.

Readers can now jump from one general article to a Zite page filled with articles on a specific topic mentioned in the article by selecting a topic tag. And an Explore page makes it easy to find more articles by linking Twitter, Facebook, Pocket or Google Reader, or checking out staff picks and popular categories.

Instead of 2,500 categories, Zite now offers 40,000. And the app’s green-and-white app icon has been replaced with a cartoony owl, which the CEO says represents intelligence, curiosity and approachability.

The original Zite used clever animation each time you opened it, swinging images around like they were on a string and neatly displaying them alongside their related articles. Now, the app just opens and articles are shown bumping into each other, like colliding puzzle pieces.

Zite still buries bylines until you open an article, which is frustrating for people like me who might read a story because of the reporter.

Several of the new Zite features give the company more feedback about what users do or don’t like. But the original app was built around the premise that you could do nothing to it and it would steadily improve as you used it. Its algorithm always monitored your every move, including which articles you opened, how long you spent reading an article, if you scrolled down or not and if you gave it a thumbs up or thumbs down. This new version puts ranking in a more prominent spot and makes Zite’s analyzing job easier.

In addition to moving an article up or down to indicate whether or not it’s well-liked, people can select a heart to see more stories on a certain topic. But this doesn’t add the topic to a user’s Quicklist, which is a selection of categories and news sources that someone chooses when first setting up the app.

By letting people dive deeper into specific topics, Zite encourages more discovery, but this blend of topic tags, Quicklist and liking a topic could be confusing.

Finding new categories and stories is easier with this new version of Zite, but maneuvering around the app’s overall layout is not. Its original design encouraged quick reading of a lot of information curated just for you, while this new layout forces you to do a lot of swiping, like with a glossy magazine, until you find what you want to read.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121204/custom-magazine-focuses-on-the-big-pictures/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121127/using-a-self-made-app-for-family-ping-pong/ http://allthingsd.com/20121127/using-a-self-made-app-for-family-ping-pong/#comments Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:03:35 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=273177 With hundreds of thousands of mobile apps out there, it’s easy to think they materialize out of thin air. The reality is a different story: App developers spend time and money researching operating systems before creating and testing apps. Then they often have to wait for an app store to approve the apps.

Given these obstacles, you would think it’s nearly impossible for average people to design a personal app.

Yet this week, I tested a tool that helps people make apps for events such as PTA meetings, church activities, fantasy football leagues or weddings. It requires next to no technical knowledge, no app-store approval and it’s free. It’s called Yapp — a mashup of “your” and “app.”

To use it, you open Yapp’s website, Yapp.us, in a computer browser, select an app design from about three dozen themes and enter whatever information you want to appear in the app, like text and photos. Pressing Publish generates a link or QR code to send to friends, family and colleagues for downloading the app. (Customized Web links, where you select the URL’s text, cost $5 each; the rest are randomly selected and free.)

But things get tricky the first time you try to download a finished app, which is also called a Yapp. When you receive an email with the Yapp link and click on it, you are sent to Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store to download YappBox, a free app that serves as an inbox for all of the Yapps a person might receive, much like Apple’s Newsstand on iPads and iPhones. Once you open YappBox, the new Yapp is there for you to use. This process is initially confusing and will intimidate some people. After that, the process of receiving apps made by friends is much smoother.

Yapp Inc., the New York start-up behind the Web site, takes advantage of a method Apple has used for years: Combining user-friendly software with beautiful design yields elegant results that look far more difficult to create than they actually are. Other app-making services either involve higher fees, or focus on certain events, like Appy Couple, which creates wedding apps.

For special events like a holiday party, users can create Yapps for guests that include Invitation and Gallery pages.

It took me as little as five minutes to make a simple Yapp. I went on to make seven, including one for my church’s holiday greens sale, one for a family ping-pong tournament and one for a holiday party. Though the functionality of these Yapps is relatively basic, they look polished and professional. And they include links that interact with other features on a mobile device, so selecting a street address links out to Google Maps or selecting an email address opens the compose email screen.

Preloaded pages in each Yapp include Invitation, Schedule, News Feed (where Twitter feeds can be imported) and Gallery (for photos). Extra pages can be added, as well as pages for People and Simple Text.

I found a theme called Underground, which had playful fonts and a loud red and brown design on its front page, to match the Yapp I made for my family ping-pong tournament. I uploaded a photo of ping-pong paddles for the Yapp’s front image. Its Invitation page included location and start time, and the Schedule page included times for three rounds of play. The News Feed included a Twitter feed and messages posted by family members using the app; the Gallery page showed family photos; and a People page listed players, titles, emails and phone numbers.

Each time I made changes to a Yapp, I pressed Publish to send updates to other users, and these people had to hit an OK button to implement these updates. This process is relatively simple and lets people keep adding features to their Yapps.

The Yapps can broadcast push notifications to other users, and these work the same way text messages appear on most devices. This is a big plus in situations like when a birthday party gets moved at the last minute because of rain or it’s the last day for wedding guests to book a hotel room. These notifications can be text-only or can include photos, and they get listed in the Yapp’s News Feed.

There are a few drawbacks, starting with the occasional sluggishness of apps. It’s missing a few features I wish it had, like the ability to add end times to events and let guests RSVP. And there aren’t many design templates to choose from.

I also wish I could collaborate with other people on a Yapp, but there’s currently only one administrator allowed per Yapp. Maria Seidman, Yapp’s CEO and co-founder, said these features and the ability to have more than one administrator are in the works.

Yapp users are asked to sign in using Facebook Connect, but Yapp never posts to Facebook on your behalf. Though signing into Yapp with Facebook credentials might be nerve-racking for people worried about privacy, I found it offered a quick way to log into Yapp via iPhone, Android phones or Web browsers.

Eight of the Yapp themes use designs that have matching stationery from popular stationery site Wedding Paper Divas, which is a nice touch if you want your wedding-app design to match your wedding invitation, program and thank-you notes.

If you’re looking for a fun way to coordinate with friends or family members, Yapp will do the trick. It has some growing up to do, but it puts app creation in the hands of real people, which is an exciting step.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121127/using-a-self-made-app-for-family-ping-pong/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121120/gaming-proves-touchy-with-the-new-wii-u/ http://allthingsd.com/20121120/gaming-proves-touchy-with-the-new-wii-u/#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:46:43 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=271482

From crockpots to thermostats, it seems like everything now has a touchscreen instead of physical buttons. This week, Nintendo joined the club with a new videogame console, the Wii U, which uses a 6.2-inch touchscreen controller.

This remote control, called the GamePad, upgrades the overall gaming experience with features commonly found on smartphones like touch gestures, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a stylus for handwriting and a front-facing camera. Instead of using antiquated directional buttons to navigate the system, a tap on the screen can send a character into a game. A touchscreen keyboard simplifies writing messages and setting up accounts.

Activity on the GamePad’s screen is reflected on the TV, which means that more people can watch what players are doing in a game. Or you can play only on the GamePad, which frees up the big screen for people who want to watch TV, though the controller can’t be used on its own far away from the console.

Yet despite the Wii U’s refreshing features, its sluggish behavior makes it a product I can’t fully recommend. And some promised programs couldn’t be tested because they don’t function yet — a delay that could frustrate some people.

The GamePad weighs just over a pound and has a 6.2-inch touchscreen.

Starting the system up for the first time took well over two hours because Wii U was downloading updates. In my four timed tests, the GamePad only held its charge for three hours and 30 minutes of use, and then needed about 2½ hours to recharge. (It also works when plugged in, but isn’t as fun to use.) Opening each new program took close to 15 seconds. And I was constantly plagued by alerts that my GamePad had disconnected from the Wii console, even when I was four or six feet away from it in my small, city townhouse.

If you already own a Wii, its games and accessories — like the Wii Balance Board — are compatible with the new Wii U. Some programs that come loaded on the Wii U GamePad don’t work yet, including apps for YouTube, Amazon Instant Video and TVii, a tool that will let people use the GamePad to control their set-top boxes, TVs and DVRs (including TiVo). Nintendo says these are expected to work next month.

I spent hours playing with Wii U, specifically testing how the GamePad worked with various games, and my husband joined me for some of the testing. We tried New Super Mario Bros. U, (our favorite thanks to nostalgic memories of the original Nintendo), Nintendo Land, Sing Party and Just Dance 4.

There are currently over 30 games available for Wii U, and 20 more are expected by March.

In New Super Mario Brothers, I controlled my character (Luigi), while also tapping the GamePad’s touchscreen to add helpful climbing blocks in midair throughout the game. It was a little distracting to control my character with one remote while also tapping the GamePad screen, but I only did this when we really needed help in a level.

I was able to keep playing on the GamePad while my husband watched “Monday Night Football” on the TV, though the sound of these games can still be heard through the GamePad speakers if they aren’t turned down, which may irk TV watchers. According to Nintendo, the GamePad won’t work if it’s more than 25 feet from the Wii U console, but, again, that distance was much shorter in my experience. Nintendo customer support hadn’t heard of the issue.

Of the games I tested, that which best illustrates the GamePad’s unique capabilities is Nintendo Land. Its 12 games range from Donkey Kong’s Crash Course, where a cart is moved through obstacles according to how you tilt the GamePad, and Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, which involves throwing ninja stars at enemies by sliding a finger across the GamePad’s touchscreen toward the TV.

Nintendo Land integrates with Miiverse, Nintendo’s Web-based social networking system, and I saw updates from lots of other users as the virtual character representing me (called a Mii) wandered around. I posted a few updates, writing in cursive with the GamePad stylus. One time when I tried to post an update, I got an error message saying servers were busy. Nintendo chalked this up to an “overwhelming response” of people using Miiverse, and it worked again later.

The Deluxe version of Wii U, which costs $350, comes with Nintendo Land as well as some other extras, such as 32 gigabytes of internal memory versus 8GB in the $300 Basic Wii U. Both versions come with the GamePad.

The GamePad itself weighs just over a pound. A built-in camera is mounted just over its 6.2-inch touchscreen. I used the built-in microphone below the screen while playing a game in Nintendo Land: I blew air onto the mike to move a cart in a game. In addition to its touchscreen, the GamePad also has traditional controls, like a cross-shaped control pad and two mini joysticks. A Power button on the GamePad powers the Wii U console, too, while a TV button let me switch TV inputs without my TV remote.

Nintendo deserves credit for creativity. But like a player who can’t seem to get through a difficult level in a videogame, the Wii U’s faults hold it back from success.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121120/gaming-proves-touchy-with-the-new-wii-u/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121113/nook-hds-screen-dazzles-but-quirks-detract/ http://allthingsd.com/20121113/nook-hds-screen-dazzles-but-quirks-detract/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 01:17:11 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=269433 If technology were more like the fashion world, this fall would be the “in” season for small, color tablets. The runway shows would feature Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD in September, Apple’s iPad Mini in October and Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD, available now.

Among this tablet trio, the Nook HD stands out with the highest-resolution small screen, and its redesigned interface continues to prove that Barnes & Noble, no doubt still a bookseller in the minds of some consumers, is taking software quite seriously.

Plenty of people will use the Nook HD for reading e-books or digital magazines and watching videos. To truly compete as a small tablet, however, it needs more apps: Only 10,000 apps are available for the Nook HD, while Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD runs some 35,000 apps and Apple’s App Store boasts over 275,000 iPad apps. The Nook HD has apps for Twitter, Dropbox and Flipboard, but none for Facebook, Yelp or Pandora.

The device’s high-resolution screen (1,440 by 900 pixels) is a great way to watch video.

The Nook HD and the Kindle Fire HD, which both have 7-inch screens, start at $199. At that price, the Nook has half the storage of the Kindle Fire HD but the Kindle has preloaded ads. The 7.9-inch-screen iPad Mini starts at $329.

I’ve been using the Nook HD for the past week, and many of its new features make it a more complete, finished device. In particular, I liked how up to six people can share the device while maintaining separate accounts for privacy, though all must share the same payment source. Neither the Kindle Fire HD nor the iPad Mini has such a feature. This means Mom can keep her mystery novels from her 11-year-old, and she won’t see her 11-year-old’s games and apps. Content can also be shared among all users, and passwords are optional.

The Your Nook Today screen shows content suggestions based on user preferences — and the weather.

Barnes & Noble now offers Nook Video, where people can buy or rent content. Movie prices are comparable to Amazon Instant Video, though Amazon offers 48-hour rentals after the time the movie starts compared with Nook rentals, which are for 24 hours. Apple’s iTunes movies cost less for some HD versions, such as “Ocean’s Thirteen” and “Disclosure,” which each cost $14.99 on iTunes vs. $19.99 on Nook Video or Amazon Instant Video.

Another new feature is Nook Catalogs, which lets users download free catalogs. Fewer than 100 company catalogs are now available, though this number should reach 100 in the next month, said a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble. I downloaded Uncommon Goods, one of my favorite gift catalogs, and navigated directly from the catalog’s pages to the company’s Web site so I could buy items.

I used a new Scrapbook feature to virtually tear out and save pages from magazines and catalogs with a two-finger, downward swipe. I named one scrapbook “Gift Ideas.” This can be shared across user profiles for gift-giving coordination.

Nook HD still has its flaws.

It’s missing the front-facing camera found on rival devices, and this will disappoint Skype users. Newly designed digital newspapers, which users can subscribe to and receive automatically as editions become available, feel stripped down. The pages and sections in The Wall Street Journal on my Nook HD felt disjointed and too much like books; indeed, the Nook HD’s version of the Journal excluded all videos.

The Nook HD allows several separate accounts on one device, and content can be shared across accounts.

On the device’s browser, some videos didn’t work in the small-screen player on WSJ.com and NYTimes.com, and videos on CNN.com didn’t play without first downloading Adobe Flash Player. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman said certain videos now only play in full-screen view on the browser. An update to fix this is planned.

In another unexpected wrinkle, I ran into an Android error message a couple of times. The Nook HD runs on a retooled version of Google’s Android operating system, but no regular user should see Android-specific messages.

On the upside, the screen of this Nook HD is stunning. Text in e-books was clear and sharp. I watched “The Bucket List,” and its scenes of snowcapped mountains looked breathtaking. At 1,440 by 900 pixels, the Nook HD’s screen is better than Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD (1,280 by 800) and especially the iPad Mini (1,024 by 768).

But as I watched the film, I noticed two things: One, the Nook HD speakers are loud enough for basic tasks — like email sound notifications — but didn’t sound sufficiently loud for this movie and another one I watched. I plugged in my headphones, and the movie sounded fine.

Two, the back of the Nook HD feels soft, like other Nooks, but its frame is made of a plastic that makes it feel less refined than the polished, solid construction of the iPad Mini and Kindle Fire HD.

There are several ways to navigate the Nook HD interface. By tapping a little silver “n” just below the device’s screen, I always returned to my home page, which showed recently opened books, newspapers, magazines, apps or daily editions of newspapers in something called the Active Shelf. Five circular icons at the bottom of the screen guided me to different sections of the device: Library, Apps, Web, Email or Shop.

A circle at the top right of the home screen called “Your Nook Today” suggests content each user might like based on preferences. Users must select at least one of these preferences during setup of the device. I think most will appreciate this feature, because it makes it easier to discover books and other content.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD makes up for its ho-hum physical build with a remarkably good screen, and it does a nice job of helping users discover more content. But to play in prime time, it needs more apps that matter and fewer quirks.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121113/nook-hds-screen-dazzles-but-quirks-detract/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121106/a-cloud-based-laptop-thats-as-light-as-one/ http://allthingsd.com/20121106/a-cloud-based-laptop-thats-as-light-as-one/#comments Tue, 06 Nov 2012 23:54:52 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=267326 You’ve heard that Microsoft has a new operating system — Windows 8. You probably also heard about Apple’s latest operating system — OS X Mountain Lion. But have you heard about the new version of Google’s Chrome operating system?

If it doesn’t sound familiar, you aren’t alone. Though Google has made a lot of noise about its Android mobile operating system, it has been relatively quiet about this operating system for computers. Chrome OS, which Google introduced in 2009, relies on the cloud, or remote servers. This means it automatically syncs content with other devices and gets system updates just by turning on.

This week, I tested Google’s newest Samsung Chromebook, a laptop designed to run Chrome OS. This is Google’s fourth Chromebook to date and it’s the most portable design yet. It weighs just 2.4 pounds, measures only seven-tenths of an inch thick and is priced at $249. That’s $80 less than Apple’s iPad mini and the same price as Amazon’s 32 gigabyte Kindle Fire HD. The Chromebook now comes with 100 gigabytes of storage on Google Drive for two years and will be available this week in some 500 Best Buy stores, as well as via Amazon.com and the Google Play Store.

Multiple users can sign into the Samsung Chromebook with their Google credentials and see personalized settings and content.

How will people use this Chromebook? They’ll use it for a lot of the same things they do with a tablet or smartphone: Composing and reading emails; browsing the Web and social networks; and running Web apps. And its full laptop keyboard and track pad make it a productive device.

People who use a lot of Google tools, like me, will feel right at home in the Chrome OS. After logging in with my Google account, I found all of my Chrome browser Web apps, Google Calendar content, Gmail messages, Google contacts and Google Drive documents waiting for me on this computer.

This device will attract users who want to save money and get rid of their heavy, slow PCs. While it won’t run Microsoft Office programs like Word or Excel, viewing and editing with Google Docs will likely work enough for people not to mind. And the cloud is a lot more familiar to people now than it was a year ago.

Google sees this Chromebook as a second or third device, like a laptop that could sit on the kitchen countertop or coffee table for all family members to use. I tested that theory in my home, asking visiting relatives to set up new user accounts on the laptop by logging into their Google accounts. They selected a photo to represent their accounts and found their Gmail, Google Drive and other saved documents on the laptop.

But Chrome OS has more limited functionality because it depends on a Wi-Fi connection. That would understandably make some people nervous. This Chromebook has only 16GB of local storage on a solid-state drive, but smartly caches files to this storage so they’re available even when the computer is offline. For example, the Offline Gmail app caches all of your emails back to every message you received a week ago; Google Drive caches the 100 most recently used Google Docs for editing and accessing offline; and Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader app makes books available for reading offline.

This $249 Chromebook comes with 12 Gogo in-flight passes for free Wi-Fi access on equipped planes. And if the thought of not being connected is too nerve-racking, a 3G version of this Chromebook will be available sometime in the next two to three weeks for $330, a spokeswoman says.

This Chromebook runs on an ARM processor, like tablets and smartphones, and has no noisy fan like some laptops. It resumed from sleep almost instantly and booted up in less than 10 seconds, in line with Google’s estimate. It includes a built-in webcam, two USB ports, an SD card slot and an HDMI port for sharing content with TVs.

The keyboard can feel a little cramped if you’re doing a lot of typing and the decision to replace the Caps Lock key with a Search button will leave lots of users baffled. To use Caps Lock, hold the Search and Shift keys simultaneously, or change the function of the Search key to Caps Lock in Settings, Device, Keyboard Settings.

Google estimates its battery could last 6½ hours on one charge. In my harsh battery test, where I turned off all power-saving features, set screen brightness to 100 percent, left Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background and played a continuous loop of local music, I got just over five hours, which might be up to six hours under regular circumstances.

The new Samsung Chromebook is priced at $249.

Since the last Chromebook in May, Google’s Chrome OS has received some subtle but important changes. Apps are now shown in a pop-up window called the Apps List. Past iterations of Chrome OS had these apps appearing in a full-screen view. I’d prefer these apps appear as they do in Google’s Chrome browser — letting me see them as I open a new browser tab. Another change is that each user’s start screen shows his or her wallpaper, so the user knows exactly what account he or she is using. And a new notifications center in the bottom right of the Chromebook screen lets people keep notifications minimized until they decide to deal with them.

If you’re looking for an additional computer and you don’t want to break the bank, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you can do with this cloud-based operating system running on a $249 Chromebook.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121106/a-cloud-based-laptop-thats-as-light-as-one/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121030/style-surprises-liven-up-latest-windows-phone/ http://allthingsd.com/20121030/style-surprises-liven-up-latest-windows-phone/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:06:57 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=265278 As if there isn’t enough going on at Microsoft right now with its new version of Windows and the first Microsoft-made computer, this week the company announced Windows Phone 8—an overhauled version of its mobile operating system.

Windows Phone, which launched two years ago, was an early glimpse at how the Windows 8 touch environment would look on the PC. Instead of static icons that represent apps or programs, both Windows Phone and Windows 8 use what Microsoft calls “live tiles.” These are icons that morph to display different images or information gleaned from your apps.

One big complaint about earlier iterations of Windows Phone was that its live tiles weren’t really live. Some icons changed to show different data, but not all, and not all of the time. Some of the data wasn’t very informative or helpful. On top of that, the tiles were stacked atop one another on the home screen, forcing people to scroll down a giant list of pinned tiles to find what they wanted.

I’ve been testing Windows Phone 8 for the past week, and I can say that this revamped version’s tiles are more “live” than in the past. The Start Screen, where these tiles appear, is redesigned to show more, left to right. And tiles can be resized to small squares, allowing people to see more with less scrolling.

The only trouble with this: Small live tiles can’t display as much data as their medium or large versions, and some small versions of tiles aren’t live at all. For example, the medium and large iterations of the “People Hub” display ever-changing photos of friends, like a patchwork quilt of images. The small version of this tile turns into a lifeless white icon of two people.

A feature called Rooms can be set up for private sharing of notes, calendars, chats and photos with specific groups of friends.

Overall, Windows Phone 8 is a delight to use. I tested it on the Windows Phone 8X by HTC, a sleek and stylish smartphone that will be available in the next three weeks from Verizon for $200 and from T-Mobile for $200 or $150, depending on your plan. AT&T plans to offer the 8X in November but the company hasn’t revealed its pricing plans.Sprint intends to offer Windows Phone 8 devices next year. By the end of this year, at least six new Windows Phone 8 models will be available. Current Windows Phone owners will soon be able to update their software to 7.8, a build that gives them the new Start Screen but not the full features of Windows Phone 8.

I especially enjoyed using apps on Windows Phone 8. A lot of these apps are designed to mimic the overall look of the Windows Phone software, displaying extra menus and features as I panned horizontally.

I used Amazon’s Kindle app, Zite, AllRecipes, WSJ Live, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN ScoreCenter, Evernote, the Weather Channel, TripAdvisor and various news apps including the Daily Beast, the Guardian, BBC News and USA Today. Though there are only 120,000 apps in the Windows Phone Store versus over 700,000 in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, these apps looked stylish and refreshingly different.

A new Windows Phone 8 feature called Kid’s Corner lets parents hand their phone over to their kids without fear of the child accidentally emailing 200 people. Kid’s Corner starts up with a right-to-left swipe from the phone’s lock screen, displaying any games, videos, music or apps that the parent has marked as accessible to the kid. If the child taps the phone’s Power button, the phone returns to its lock screen, which can be protected with a passcode.

This version of the Windows Phone also features Rooms, which can be set up for private sharing with specific groups of friends. Things like calendars, notes, chats and photos can be swapped here.

Kid’s Corner on Windows Phone 8 displays only games, videos, music or apps that a parent selects. A

Some features and apps have odd qualities. When I opened the People Hub and read my sister’s latest Facebook status, I couldn’t see names of people who “liked” her status. In Twitter, I opted to be notified when anyone retweeted my tweets, but these only appeared in notifications at the top of my phone screen rather than in the Twitter app.

Battery life on my Windows Phone 8X by HTC was remarkably good. I didn’t use the phone for calls or texts as I was testing a version of the 8X that didn’t have a SIM card, so that affected my results. But even after tapping on my 4.3-inch screen and using Wi-Fi all day—checking email, browsing the Web, taking photos and playing with apps—I still had ¼ of my battery remaining by midnight.

Unlike some phones that don’t display tips or shortcuts, Windows Phone 8 encourages you to use its personalization tools. For example, a screen showed up that said, “Use Facebook photos on your lock screen” and I tapped configure. (Not Now was another option.) From then on, different Facebook photos showed up on my lock screen—a fun surprise.

The animations in Windows Phone 8 are smooth and playful. When you send an email, the email message appears as if it is backing away from you, then shoots up.

Tiles on the Start Screen fluttered with info. When I pinned a Roquefort Pear Salad recipe from the AllRecipes app to my Start Screen, the small tile version of this recipe only appeared as a photo of the salad, but its medium tile occasionally flipped to show the title of the salad on one side and the image of the salad on the other.

Someone who glanced over my shoulder and looked at the user interface of Windows Phone 8 said, “That’s a really pretty phone.” He was right. Its combined good looks, functional features and sexy new hardware make it a winning smartphone.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com

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